Addressing Health Equity: Eliminating Healthcare Disparities in New York State

In 2011, the Governor’s Medicaid Redesign Team Workgroup on Health Disparities released fourteen (14) recommendations aimed at addressing health disparities in New York State. Among them, implementation and expansion of data collection standards as required by Section 4302 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to increase the quality, quantity and granularity of race and ethnicity data. In keeping with this recommendation, the quality and completeness of data collected by the New York State Department of Health are being assessed by linking and analyzing data sets including Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS), Vital Statistics, and Medicaid. SPARCS and other health data collection systems (including the Expanded Behavioral Risk Factor Survey [eBRFSS]) are being expanded to increase the race and ethnicity categories to align with ACA, Section 4302 and to allow reporting of multiple races and multiple ethnicity categories.

To advance this work, the New York State Department of Health, University at Albany, School of Public Health, and the Healthcare Association of New York (HANYS) have partnered to increase attention on the role healthcare plays in contributing to healthcare disparities; improve the reliability and completeness of race and ethnicity data collected and reported; and promote use of these data to identify and target health care disparities and improve health equity in New York.

Increase knowledge about healthcare disparities across New York

Assess the quality and reliability of race and ethnicity data collected by facilities.

Expand the granularity of race and ethnicity data collected as part of BRFSS and SPARCS

Improve quality and completeness of race and ethnicity data collected and reported

Identifying disparities in healthcare quality

Develop targeted interventions to address disparities in healthcare

On Demand Events - these are previously recorded webinars that are available for you to view at your convenience.